


Cieca Fede

by Thalia DMuse (truth_renowned)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 03:12:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6221293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_renowned/pseuds/Thalia%20DMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was discovering the truth worth it? </p><p>Completed in 1998. Spoilers for Redux II.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cieca Fede

I never believed it would happen.

I assumed it would remain as it always has, just out of our reach. A dream destined to never become a reality. But miraculously, one day we found ourselves within a hair's breadth of the truth.

And that day, the truth shattered our lives.

They found us before we reached our goal. They found us before we had the proof in our hands. We never did get the proof, but we knew. We knew everything. We ignored their threats, almost daring them to challenge us. We were high on knowledge and nothing they could have said would have weakened our spirits. So cocky, so sure of ourselves. Like David in the deadly grip of Goliath, grinning madly and flicking the giant's nose just to taunt him further.

We were foolish that day. We should have known better.

One month from the time we learned the truth, I disappeared. For two days, my whereabouts were unknown. I have no recollection of those two days, nor do I recall how I ended up in front of your apartment building forty-five hours after my disappearance. When you opened your door to me, I saw a war erupt on your face. Eyes filled with panic and anger slowly softened to reveal relief, then tears. Your mouth opened and closed, words taking shape on your lips but never supported by your voice.

Without warning, you surrounded me; your arms, your breath, your heartbeat encasing me in your warmth. I remember our embrace being so tight I could barely breathe. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. I was home.

Our first kiss was not a conscious effort for either of us. Our lips met, two magnets attracting, pulling until they joined. Mouths opened, tongues danced. Passion slowly accelerated, taking on speed and intensity with each kiss. Hands moved of their own volition, exploring and marking territories as they went. You were a contradiction of terms: hard and soft, warm and cool, aggressive and tentative. Everywhere I touched with hand or mouth, I memorized your texture and flavor. The chocolate smoothness of your hair, the velvet roughness of your unshaven cheek, the salty tang of your skin.

I allowed myself to relax in your arms as you touched me, your hands skimming my body, starting at my waist and slowly moving up, leaving a blaze of desire as they went. I felt myself melting as our kiss deepened, your fingers burrowing in my hair, moving to support my neck as I tilted my head back, opening myself further to you.

It ended as quickly as it started.

You tore your mouth from mine when your hand closed over the back of my neck. The look on your face was one of horror. Though we had faced monsters of all kinds, situations we never thought we would survive, never had I witnessed a look as devastating on your face.

"What? What is it?"

My eyes widened as I saw tears falling from your eyes, droplets catching on the days-old stubble as they cascaded down your cheeks. You turned me around and lifted the hair from the nape of my neck. At first I thought you would shower my neck with kisses, as you had done my face and throat. Then realization rocked me with the force of an earthquake.

My God.

The implant.

My hands joined yours, searching for the tale-tell lump, the subtle protrusion that told me the metal burrowed under my skin was still nestled in its place.

Nothing.

"What does the skin look like? Is it red?"

I didn't need to say the words. I knew the skin was reddened and freshly sewn. The area was tender, as though scratched or bruised, but not painful. Still, I knew.

Your voice shattered the silence, piercing my heart. "It's gone, Scully."

"How do you know?" Defiance. Denial. I refused to believe.

"I just do. It's gone." Your words wrapped in the thickness of tears. "This is our punishment. For knowing the truth."

"No."

I ran from you, stumbling my way into your bathroom. Lifting my hair, I angled myself against the mirror on the medicine cabinet and the one above the sink.

"No."

You were right. Damn you for being right.

"No."

I don't know how it happened, but I found myself on the floor of your bathroom, one hand still holding my hair from my neck. You were there, pulling me into your embrace. I can't remember if I was crying or screaming or silent in shock. I can't remember anything but your touch. So gentle, so caring. Never before had you held me like that, as a father would hold his daughter.

I should have hated you for it, for treating me like a blubbering child. I didn't, though. I still don't. I needed it, needed your strength. Needed you. I still do.

At some point, while sitting on the cold floor of your bathroom, I made a conscious choice to open myself to you. You accepted the challenge, tenderly stripping away my defenses as you stripped away my clothes, until I stood before you, naked and vulnerable on all levels. I allowed you to see all of me. My body, my weakness, my need. You returned the gesture, showing me a side of you I knew was there but had yet to see. We fed upon each other, seeking comfort in the sensation of skin against skin. Heart against heart.

The joining of our bodies was explosive. No names were screamed, no deities were beckoned. The only sounds were that of our sweat-slicked bodies slapping together with a force that should have broken bones. Pain jolted through me with each thrust but I couldn't stop. I _wouldn't_ stop. I needed to feel alive. I needed you to thrust your life into me, to fill me with hope as you shuddered and emptied yourself into my womb. A foolish thought, looking back, but at the time I would have believed in aliens and poltergeists and Santa Claus. As I took flight, pleasure lifting me from my body, I looked down on us, on our writhing bodies.

At that moment, I believed with all my heart.

Our bodies sated, we held each other, forever linked on more than just a physical level. Once breath and voice returned, I could think of nothing to say. The experience was beyond words, beyond a mere sexual liaison. Somehow, I felt words would ruin the moment, and somehow, you knew it as well. Silence cocooned us and sleep soon followed. When we woke, hours later, you spoke the only words of the night.

"We'll find it, Scully."

You were so sure we would. I believed you. I only wish you had been right.

One month from the time I disappeared, the cancer returned. The ferocity with which it attacked my body astounded me, as well as my doctors. Though it returned to the exact place it had been, behind my nasal cavity, it grew at a more alarming rate than its predecessor. Every treatment, conventional or radical, was useless. The cancer grew like an uncontrollable weed, fertilized by our inability to destroy it.

Your protectiveness grew almost as fast as the tumor. I was angry, offended that you thought I couldn't protect myself. I fought you on it at first, letting you know in no uncertain terms that I was capable of watching out for myself. Then I saw your face when I told you to leave. I knew that look. Each day the implant eluded us tightened the noose around your neck another notch. I realized that if I pushed you away, I would push you directly into the arms of Death. Right where I was. I couldn't do that to you. I couldn't do that to someone I loved with my entire being.

I don't try to fool myself about our love. It is not the love made of fairy tales and Hollywood movies. It is a love borne of fear and death. Morbid, I know, but no less treasured and no less true. There are truths in every aspect of our lives, even in love. It's funny, in a tragic sort of way. The truth, the one we had been seeking for years, was everything to us, yet we haven't spoken of it since the cancer returned. I think if it was possible for us to forget, we would. I know you would. You spent your entire life looking for the truth and now that you have it, you can't forget it fast enough.

It's amazing how one event, one moment in time, can change everything. Once a friend to us, time has become a thieving enemy, joining forces with the cancer to steal more than just precious moments.

Within two months of my diagnosis, the cancer stole my sight. You had moved in by then, returning to your apartment only to replenish your wardrobe or to retrieve a file from your computer. I had noticed my eyesight waning over a period of several weeks, though I said nothing to you. I knew you would worry, and that you would step up your efforts in finding the implant. A move that would have gotten you killed, and I couldn't let that happen.

As selfish as the thought is, I need you to be here until the end. Though I know what seeing me die is doing. It is killing you. It is almost as if you have the cancer yourself. My hands tell me you are losing weight. My ears tell me you are losing hope. I'm not sure which one scares me more.

It has been two months since I lost my sight. I can hear an almost audible gnawing sound in my head as the cancer continues to eat away at my brain. I have lost some weight, probably twenty pounds. None of this has affected my ability to get around the apartment. I can still fend for myself. I can still fix a sandwich, still turn on the television and listen, though I have to imagine the picture.

I can also still make love to you. I think my biggest regret about losing my sight is that I can't see you when we make love. I remember the first time after my sight had completely left. We had never been talkative about anything in our lives, and that was certainly true for sex. Words were not necessary. Our eyes did the talking for us. But in the absence of my sight, you compensated beautifully. You knew I needed to hear your voice to ground me, to put me at ease. You started to explain what it felt like when I touched you, what it felt like to touch me. Everything your eyes used to tell me sounded so familiar yet so different when spoken. It was awkward at first but we soon adapted, and our lovemaking became more passionate. My hearing sharpened and I began to know your body through moans and whispers. I began to kiss you more, not just your lips but everywhere, memorizing the taste and scent of your skin. My hands familiarized themselves with what my eyes had taken for granted.

Through my other senses, I found a new side of you and of me. Of us. Still, with all of these new discoveries, I miss being able to see you. I have to rely on my memories to supply the images, yet those memories, no matter how vivid, are not enough for me.

I miss seeing you look at my body, caressing me with eyes darkened by desire. I miss seeing your jaw clenching as you fight to control your body until you are sure I am at that precipice with you. I miss seeing that beautiful mouth as it pleasures me. I miss the languid smile on your lips as you return from that place of ecstasy. I miss seeing you say 'I love you'.

I miss all of that so much, yet I find myself unable to remember as much as before. Memories are slipping away like water through my fingers. Sometimes I forget what day it is or where I am, and I have to concentrate all of my energy to figure it out. I can't seem to remember insignificant things like the author of my favorite book or the designer of my favorite suit. The most disturbing of all, though, is that I am forgetting your face, the subtle details starting to blur into nothingness. Is the mole on your left cheek or right? Is it your right eye or left that has the heavier concentration of gold flecks? I am forgetting what your body looks like, and have to keep reminding myself with my hands the shape and texture of you.

The cancer has not only stolen my sight, but now it is beginning to steal my mind. I won't let it. You and I both know that. Our agreement, when all of this started, was that we would not allow the cancer to invade my thought processes. You agreed to help me. I'm going to hold you to that.

My other senses heightened, I hear the faint 'snick' as your key slips into the lock. I don't know where you have been all day and half the night. I never know, never question your whereabouts. I know no matter where you are and what you are doing, I am always on your mind.

Your feet are heavy on the hardwood floor, your gait slow. Bad news. I've heard that walk too many times in the past few months. 'I didn't find it, Scully.' 'I almost had it, Scully.'

"Hey, it's me." Your voice is rough, more like sandpaper than normal. Very bad news.

"What is it?"

Scents of you fill my nostrils as you approach. The tangy mixture of sweat and dust. The rugged smell of worn leather. The faint yet unmistakable aroma of fear.

Your weight settles on the bed and I feel your hand caress my hair. "I..." Tears choke your voice. "I need to go away. I have a lead. It's a good one, Scully. Really."

Are you saying that to convince me or to convince yourself?

"Mulder, it's too late."

"No. This is it. This is the one."

"No deals?"

Another item of agreement had been the deals. No deals, no matter what. I know you would sell your soul to the smoking man, the Consortium or the Devil himself, if it meant my cure. Our biggest argument to date has been about the deals. I made you swear on my life that you wouldn't deal with them. You agreed, reluctantly but fully.

"No deals, Scully. Free and clear. It's the real thing."

"They've all been the real thing until you actually got there. No deals means it's too good to be true."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. It's time, Mulder."

"No."

"It is. I need you..."

"NO!" Your weight is gone from the bed and I can hear your determined footsteps as you pace between the bed and the closet.

"You promised."

"I lied."

"No, you didn't."

"I can't do it, Scully. I can't.... It's not time. We still have time."

"No, Mulder, we don't. At least, I don't. I...I'm starting to forget."

A gasp, then a choked cry. The sound reaches out to me, blanketing my heart and smothering me in its agonizing weight. Your footsteps come closer to the bed and I feel you settle on the mattress again, planting a hand on either side of my body.

"Forty-eight hours. That's all I need."

"I don't know..."

"Please."

You bring your mouth to mine, tears salting the taste of your lips as they caress mine. A good-bye kiss?

"Please, Scully. If this doesn't pan out, and it will, I'm sure of it...but if for some reason it doesn't, then...then I'll help you."

You know me so well. You know I cannot deny you this one last chance. You also know I cannot deny the energy I feel in your presence. You are so sure this is the one. There is no doubt in your voice, nor in your heart. Hope wraps around your breath, leaving your body as you exhale, entering my body as I inhale. I want to believe. Make me a believer, Mulder.

"Forty-eight hours." I barely hear my whisper but I know you did.

You fall onto the bed, taking me in your arms, whispering thank-you's and I-love-you's as you divest us of our clothing. Your physical need grows with each stroke of my hand. Your emotional need doesn't show but is ever-present and ever-growing. It always has and always will. I don't have to see your eyes to know what you are thinking.

My eyes may not see the present but they remember the past.

In forty-eight hours, the past may be all that remains.


End file.
